🔗 Share this article

Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her preoccupied mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the weeks that ensue, they sexually assault her, then bury her alive, combination of nervousness and annoyance flitting across their faces as they finally free her from her temporary coffin.

This may have functioned as the jarring focal point of a novel, but it's only one of multiple terrible events in The Elements, which gathers four novelettes – released individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront previous suffering and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the second novella, on the preliminary list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other candidates pulled out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the effect of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and assault are all investigated.

Four Stories of Trauma

• In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow moves to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent travels to a funeral with his young son, and wonders how much to reveal about his family's past.

Pain is accumulated upon suffering as hurt survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for forever

Interconnected Narratives

Connections abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's jury contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Minor characters from one story return in cottages, bars or legal settings in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author is skilled at how to drive a narrative – his earlier successful Holocaust drama has sold many copies, and he has been translated into numerous languages. His businesslike prose shines with thriller-ish hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to experiment with fire"; "the primary step I do when I arrive on the island is modify my name".

Character Development and Storytelling Power

Characters are drawn in concise, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes resonate with melancholy power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after urinating at a football match; a narrow-minded island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a real frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is numbing, and at times practically comic: suffering is piled on suffering, coincidence on chance in a bleak farce in which wounded survivors seem doomed to meet each other again and again for eternity.

Thematic Depth and Final Evaluation

If this sounds not exactly life and closer to uncertainty, that is part of the author's point. These damaged people are oppressed by the crimes they have suffered, caught in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn hurt others. The author has spoken about the influence of his personal experiences of abuse and he describes with compassion the way his ensemble traverse this dangerous landscape, reaching out for remedies – solitude, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "basic" concept isn't extremely educational, while the rapid pace means the examination of sexual politics or online networks is mostly shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a entirely accessible, victim-focused chronicle: a valued rebuttal to the common fixation on detectives and criminals. The author shows how trauma can run through lives and generations, and how time and tenderness can silence its aftereffects.